Better yet, do up all your windows like this and then write a little 3d program to simulate a cartoon world or something. You could live in Greyskull, or Doom, or wherever. And you can even have He-Man running around outside defeating Skeletor in his plot to take the castle.;)
That would be pretty cool.
I was thinking outer space scenes would be pretty cool too. Starship battles happing outside your house. Hell, you could have the rebel assault on the Death Star going on.;)
I realize you were using Windows, but XFree86 (and X.org, presumably) has this great extension that would turn each window into a single desktop, and might even turn both windows into a single desktop, solving your problem entirely. Then you could use Mplayer or any of several video players to handle animating the shots for you.
Doing this is probably the only legally defendable kind of destructive copy-protection.
Actually, there is no legally defendible copy protection of any sort. A pretty important nit to pick, really. The DMCA itself should actually be declared unconstitutional, because it is.
You see, copy-protection violates the sacred arrangement that copyright represents: it prevents the software from entering the public domain upon expiration.
The DMCA should be declared unconstitutional for this reason exactly, because it protects a method that is used to prevent copyrighted materials from being copied without the owner's permission, more or less indefinitely. Copyright is supposed to expire, and unless your copyprotection accounts for it, you're in violation.
I'm still very much in favor of revoking copyright for people who use copy protection on their stuff and immediately forcing it into the public domain. So it should be legal to break the copy protection. If you want protection from the law, honor your end of the bargain and place the work into the public domain upon expiration of the copyright. If you don't want protection from the law, then go ahead and use copy protection. but don't whine about piracy, you had your choice.
Heh, you're kinda supporting a side point I was making. The thrust of the point was "learn from history", based on "this doesn't change the historical relationship between modern native americans and the interlopers".;)
Yeah, flamebait is more like it, since it's irrelevant whether or not a candidate is on the ballot whether or not you can vote for him. You can vote for anyone; they can only take office according to constitutional requirements (36, born US citizen, etc), and whether or not they're on the ballot doesn't actually matter.
The reason you have to have a bunch of signatures in a district to get on the ballot is to prevent people from signing up just to fill up the ballot. That shit ain't cheap, so the election people want to know that enough people are willing to vote for the guy before putting him on the ballot.
But you can still vote Nader if you like, regardless of whether or not he's on the ballot. (This is something they need to ensure for electronic voting)
The crux of his question is still good, but he phrased it in a fashion that invites flames, hence flamebait is a better mod than troll.
Most of my homes have had "Protected by *somebody*" stickers on them. Since 99% of criminals will profile the area, I make it known that I'm generally a badass, that I keep odd, unpredictable hours, and so forth. And I always take out my copy of the Satanic Bible when I do go places, because most criminals are pretty superstitious (I've had people over in the past selling drugs or whatever look at the book, quickly conclude their business, and then run to their cars, peel out trying to leave. Nothing scares a two-bit thief more than that book).
It also helps that I generally get to know the neighborhood. People around me know that I'm not shy about using anything near me as a deadly weapon if it ever became necessary. Long hair and heavy metal will go a long way towards ensuring your security.
Results? Every wave of crime that goes by misses me? Do you consider that to be results? When break-ins abound, I get passed up. It's pretty cool. Doesn't work, though, if the criminals outnumber you in a big way (because I have had stuff stolen before, when we were instead trying to live low-key. My policies have changed since then).
I'm convinced that overall, we're talking about a Very Bad Thing. If you think that the destruction of almost any major industrial country would not be devastating to the world economy in general, or the US economy in particular, I think you're sadly mistaken. Like I said before, this isn't 1945. There really is a world economy, and we really are intimately affected by its every nuance.
Heh, I was just trying to point out that 9/11 didn't cause the economic crash we had, because it was something that was already under way.
Your points about Japan suffering a nuke strike wrecking us are too true. I'm curious how deep the dependence on Japanese (and for that matter, Chinese, Taiwanese, and Korean) electronics goes. Seems that if our military uses enough of that stuff, then nuking Japan could actually put the US in a position where we may not be able to fight back immediately due to a lack of supplies. I heard awhile back that our military was required to use only locally-made stuff, and it seems like our semiconductor industry is up to par for satisfying military contracts, but contractors are one of the more notoriously corrupt businesses. In any case, I think you're right about what a nuclear strike on Japan would do to our economy here, and it's not just here. Much of the world is dependent on Japanese electronics.
I will assume that you mean the F-117 Stealth fighter that was used to guide the missiles in (via lasar). That program was started in the late 70's under carter, not the 60's.
And it was brought out into the open when it was time to take them off their secret base and put them on regular bases. It's a bit harder to keep air force units a secret and still be able to use them, since they are logistic nightmares. Missiles are different, develop the thing in secret, build it in secret, ship it in secret, stash it, and it's ready. But jets are a different matter.
They actually came out of their classified status a few years before the Gulf War. The Gulf War was just the first time they saw action. My dad joined up with the stealth program after they came out in the open. He even went to Vegas to work for six months preparing them in their move to Holloman AFB (simulators was his field). By the time they made it to Holloman, the whole instrumnet cluster was declassified except for one gauge, I think (the one my brother pointed at on the simulator and said "what's that?" and my dad said "I can tell you, but I'd have to kill you"). Don't know about the rest of the plane, but stealth bombers were doing flashy showy runs around town before the Gulf War actually happened.
I'll bite.;) Because there does happen to be an empire that has a better track record than the US in military matters, even if we have beaten them at war ourselves.
No military force in the entire history of the world has had as many successive and dominating victories as the US had. Name one empire that stretched from the western shores of Europe back around to the Western shores of Europe.
"The sun never sets on the British flag."
Also keeping in mind, as always, that England gave its colonies independence over time. Few of them revolted (as far as I know, only 13 of them actually revolted, the rest achieved independence peacefully), and England can still lay claim in its history of having the largest empire ever in our small planet's history.
Not that your statements about our military are totally wrong, because our military is pretty damn good (even if somewhat accident-prone). Just that to say it's the best there has ever been is ignoring certain other empires. WWII, for example, the decisive European battles in WWII were fought in the Soviet Union. Many large and influential battles happened elsewhere, but most historians seem to agree now that Hitler was beat in the winter campaign in the Soviet Union.
And your statements also ignore our own losses. The Canadians burned the white house, if you recall. Also, Korea and Viet Nam weren't exactly victories.
Let's try that again, using 1991's invasion of Iraq as well. Your text and his in italics, mine normal.
Iraq (1991): Iraq: no nuclear weapons, many chemical weapons, fourth largest conventional army on Earth, really a military threat to its neighbours, including US 'allies' like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Israel invades Kuwait - result: invasion.
Iraq (2003): no nuclear weapons, very weak conventional army, not really a military threat to any of its neighbours, including US allies hasn't made any military moves in 10 years - result: invasion.
Can't forget that we actually did accomplish what we set out to do in 1991, which was to get Saddam out of Kuwait. And that was all we were there for. The mission was different the last time.
I think you underestimate the situation. Remember 9/11? Remember the US economy taking a royal crap over the loss of one building and a few thousand worker bees?
Remember the stock market losses in the first half of that year? Remember the dot coms going bust left and right before september even thought about happening?
Sure, 9/11 did some economic damage, but the economy was already headed for a big crash. Analysts determined that it helped make that crash happen a little sooner, but not much sooner than a quarter anyway.
What do you think would happen if Japan, one of the world's most powerful economic engines, were destroyed or knocked out of play for a while?
Ford would start making decent cars? Seriously, NK is a threat to us purely by location, but let's not forget that China has already told us to stay out and let them deal with it. That's pretty serious, because it means that if we go into NK without China's approval at the very least, then we're looking at a much more serious war. It would be The Second Korean War, and literally a continuation of the First, same sides and everything.
China potentially sanctioning us is pretty serious too, but that would probably damage them as much as it would us right now, so I don't know that they'd actually do it. It'd be more like mommy and daddy fighting but still working the checkbook together, and still eating dinner at the same table. Tense, but business goes on.
It's another "damned if we do, damned if we don't" election. How many more of these do we need before we figure out that our method of doing government doesn't work anymore?
Sure, we can trumpet our successes, but we can also ignore our failures. I'd suggest that just changing the voting system (one vote per person isn't enough, apparently) and removing the electoral college is enough to get our government headed in the right direction. And I'll vote for any candidate who promises that.;)
In the case of an actual invasion, or even a war that most of the population actually feels is right (afghanistan, WW2, WW1, etc) there will be no shortage of people wanting to join and fight. Hell, if it came to that, I'd join up. I won't for present conditions because my wife and three kids are slightly more important to me than the president's personal war.
I am a foreigner living in the US and I could naturalize but even the remote chance of a draft in this country makes this a very unattractive option to me
If you're not willing to stand up and fight for your country, why should you be granted citizenship to that country?
Seriously. I don't exactly like this war in Iraq thing, and I don't really want to see us at war for much longer, but let's get back to basic issues. If you're too cowardly to stand and fight to protect your country (the stated intention of the draft, whether it's true on implementation or not), then what right do you have to the benefits of the country?
Sometimes I think Heinlein was right and only veterans should vote.
It's not quite that simple. The US has propped up regimes and so forth for the purpose of keeping the price of oil down. If the Middle East didn't have any natural resources the US cared about, they'd probably be in a lot better shape than they are. One thing is certain about those guys, they will revolt if they think there's a good enough reason to do it.
The current state of madmen running middle eastern countries is the result of a century or so of western imperialism (not just US, either).
Um, Russia pulled out of WWI because of their revolution. They found themselves in a civil war with multiple sides which ended with Lenin taking power. (There was an interim non-czarist government, but the Bolsheviks kept up the fight and pushed them out)
*That* was why the war on the eastern front was over. The Germans had bigger fish to fry, otherwise they would have flowed through Russia like the Mississippi river flows through, I don't know, some flat mostly downhill piece of land.
Which administration was it again under which Al-Qaeda and the Taliban grew to power, and intelligence agents were barred from taking information from "bad guys?"
How far back do you really want to go? Bin laden is CIA-trained. In fact, if you go back far enough, you have to quit pointing fingers at specific people and groups of people, and wind up being forced to conclude that a combination of Europe, the US, and the Soviet-bloc created the middle east as it stands today.
Slashdot Mirror
Aha, but the real question is, why won't my motherboard let me put two video cards in it? It won't initialize with two video cards. ;(
Better yet, do up all your windows like this and then write a little 3d program to simulate a cartoon world or something. You could live in Greyskull, or Doom, or wherever. And you can even have He-Man running around outside defeating Skeletor in his plot to take the castle. ;)
That would be pretty cool.
I was thinking outer space scenes would be pretty cool too. Starship battles happing outside your house. Hell, you could have the rebel assault on the Death Star going on. ;)
I realize you were using Windows, but XFree86 (and X.org, presumably) has this great extension that would turn each window into a single desktop, and might even turn both windows into a single desktop, solving your problem entirely. Then you could use Mplayer or any of several video players to handle animating the shots for you.
In case you were wondering...
Doing this is probably the only legally defendable kind of destructive copy-protection.
Actually, there is no legally defendible copy protection of any sort. A pretty important nit to pick, really. The DMCA itself should actually be declared unconstitutional, because it is.
You see, copy-protection violates the sacred arrangement that copyright represents: it prevents the software from entering the public domain upon expiration.
The DMCA should be declared unconstitutional for this reason exactly, because it protects a method that is used to prevent copyrighted materials from being copied without the owner's permission, more or less indefinitely. Copyright is supposed to expire, and unless your copyprotection accounts for it, you're in violation.
I'm still very much in favor of revoking copyright for people who use copy protection on their stuff and immediately forcing it into the public domain. So it should be legal to break the copy protection. If you want protection from the law, honor your end of the bargain and place the work into the public domain upon expiration of the copyright. If you don't want protection from the law, then go ahead and use copy protection. but don't whine about piracy, you had your choice.
Heh, you're kinda supporting a side point I was making. The thrust of the point was "learn from history", based on "this doesn't change the historical relationship between modern native americans and the interlopers". ;)
I like your sig, too.
Please explain that one to my date from last Friday...
Regardless of what she did, your mom already knew that.
Yeah, flamebait is more like it, since it's irrelevant whether or not a candidate is on the ballot whether or not you can vote for him. You can vote for anyone; they can only take office according to constitutional requirements (36, born US citizen, etc), and whether or not they're on the ballot doesn't actually matter.
The reason you have to have a bunch of signatures in a district to get on the ballot is to prevent people from signing up just to fill up the ballot. That shit ain't cheap, so the election people want to know that enough people are willing to vote for the guy before putting him on the ballot.
But you can still vote Nader if you like, regardless of whether or not he's on the ballot. (This is something they need to ensure for electronic voting)
The crux of his question is still good, but he phrased it in a fashion that invites flames, hence flamebait is a better mod than troll.
I'm every bit in your school of thinking.
Most of my homes have had "Protected by *somebody*" stickers on them. Since 99% of criminals will profile the area, I make it known that I'm generally a badass, that I keep odd, unpredictable hours, and so forth. And I always take out my copy of the Satanic Bible when I do go places, because most criminals are pretty superstitious (I've had people over in the past selling drugs or whatever look at the book, quickly conclude their business, and then run to their cars, peel out trying to leave. Nothing scares a two-bit thief more than that book).
It also helps that I generally get to know the neighborhood. People around me know that I'm not shy about using anything near me as a deadly weapon if it ever became necessary. Long hair and heavy metal will go a long way towards ensuring your security.
Results? Every wave of crime that goes by misses me? Do you consider that to be results? When break-ins abound, I get passed up. It's pretty cool. Doesn't work, though, if the criminals outnumber you in a big way (because I have had stuff stolen before, when we were instead trying to live low-key. My policies have changed since then).
I'm convinced that overall, we're talking about a Very Bad Thing. If you think that the destruction of almost any major industrial country would not be devastating to the world economy in general, or the US economy in particular, I think you're sadly mistaken. Like I said before, this isn't 1945. There really is a world economy, and we really are intimately affected by its every nuance.
Heh, I was just trying to point out that 9/11 didn't cause the economic crash we had, because it was something that was already under way.
Your points about Japan suffering a nuke strike wrecking us are too true. I'm curious how deep the dependence on Japanese (and for that matter, Chinese, Taiwanese, and Korean) electronics goes. Seems that if our military uses enough of that stuff, then nuking Japan could actually put the US in a position where we may not be able to fight back immediately due to a lack of supplies. I heard awhile back that our military was required to use only locally-made stuff, and it seems like our semiconductor industry is up to par for satisfying military contracts, but contractors are one of the more notoriously corrupt businesses. In any case, I think you're right about what a nuclear strike on Japan would do to our economy here, and it's not just here. Much of the world is dependent on Japanese electronics.
So, yeah, NK having nukes is a big deal. ;)
I will assume that you mean the F-117 Stealth fighter that was used to guide the missiles in (via lasar). That program was started in the late 70's under carter, not the 60's.
And it was brought out into the open when it was time to take them off their secret base and put them on regular bases. It's a bit harder to keep air force units a secret and still be able to use them, since they are logistic nightmares. Missiles are different, develop the thing in secret, build it in secret, ship it in secret, stash it, and it's ready. But jets are a different matter.
They actually came out of their classified status a few years before the Gulf War. The Gulf War was just the first time they saw action. My dad joined up with the stealth program after they came out in the open. He even went to Vegas to work for six months preparing them in their move to Holloman AFB (simulators was his field). By the time they made it to Holloman, the whole instrumnet cluster was declassified except for one gauge, I think (the one my brother pointed at on the simulator and said "what's that?" and my dad said "I can tell you, but I'd have to kill you"). Don't know about the rest of the plane, but stealth bombers were doing flashy showy runs around town before the Gulf War actually happened.
I'll bite. ;) Because there does happen to be an empire that has a better track record than the US in military matters, even if we have beaten them at war ourselves.
No military force in the entire history of the world has had as many successive and dominating victories as the US had. Name one empire that stretched from the western shores of Europe back around to the Western shores of Europe.
"The sun never sets on the British flag."
Also keeping in mind, as always, that England gave its colonies independence over time. Few of them revolted (as far as I know, only 13 of them actually revolted, the rest achieved independence peacefully), and England can still lay claim in its history of having the largest empire ever in our small planet's history.
Not that your statements about our military are totally wrong, because our military is pretty damn good (even if somewhat accident-prone). Just that to say it's the best there has ever been is ignoring certain other empires. WWII, for example, the decisive European battles in WWII were fought in the Soviet Union. Many large and influential battles happened elsewhere, but most historians seem to agree now that Hitler was beat in the winter campaign in the Soviet Union.
And your statements also ignore our own losses. The Canadians burned the white house, if you recall. Also, Korea and Viet Nam weren't exactly victories.
So, yeah, that's it.
Let's try that again, using 1991's invasion of Iraq as well. Your text and his in italics, mine normal.
Iraq (1991): Iraq: no nuclear weapons, many chemical weapons, fourth largest conventional army on Earth, really a military threat to its neighbours, including US 'allies' like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Israel invades Kuwait - result: invasion.
Iraq (2003): no nuclear weapons, very weak conventional army, not really a military threat to any of its neighbours, including US allies hasn't made any military moves in 10 years - result: invasion.
Can't forget that we actually did accomplish what we set out to do in 1991, which was to get Saddam out of Kuwait. And that was all we were there for. The mission was different the last time.
Hey, you're coming dangerously close to detecting my sarcasm now.
I think you underestimate the situation. Remember 9/11? Remember the US economy taking a royal crap over the loss of one building and a few thousand worker bees?
Remember the stock market losses in the first half of that year? Remember the dot coms going bust left and right before september even thought about happening?
Sure, 9/11 did some economic damage, but the economy was already headed for a big crash. Analysts determined that it helped make that crash happen a little sooner, but not much sooner than a quarter anyway.
What do you think would happen if Japan, one of the world's most powerful economic engines, were destroyed or knocked out of play for a while?
Ford would start making decent cars? Seriously, NK is a threat to us purely by location, but let's not forget that China has already told us to stay out and let them deal with it. That's pretty serious, because it means that if we go into NK without China's approval at the very least, then we're looking at a much more serious war. It would be The Second Korean War, and literally a continuation of the First, same sides and everything.
China potentially sanctioning us is pretty serious too, but that would probably damage them as much as it would us right now, so I don't know that they'd actually do it. It'd be more like mommy and daddy fighting but still working the checkbook together, and still eating dinner at the same table. Tense, but business goes on.
It's another "damned if we do, damned if we don't" election. How many more of these do we need before we figure out that our method of doing government doesn't work anymore?
Sure, we can trumpet our successes, but we can also ignore our failures. I'd suggest that just changing the voting system (one vote per person isn't enough, apparently) and removing the electoral college is enough to get our government headed in the right direction. And I'll vote for any candidate who promises that. ;)
In the case of an actual invasion, or even a war that most of the population actually feels is right (afghanistan, WW2, WW1, etc) there will be no shortage of people wanting to join and fight. Hell, if it came to that, I'd join up. I won't for present conditions because my wife and three kids are slightly more important to me than the president's personal war.
I am a foreigner living in the US and I could naturalize but even the remote chance of a draft in this country makes this a very unattractive option to me
If you're not willing to stand up and fight for your country, why should you be granted citizenship to that country?
Seriously. I don't exactly like this war in Iraq thing, and I don't really want to see us at war for much longer, but let's get back to basic issues. If you're too cowardly to stand and fight to protect your country (the stated intention of the draft, whether it's true on implementation or not), then what right do you have to the benefits of the country?
Sometimes I think Heinlein was right and only veterans should vote.
It's not quite that simple. The US has propped up regimes and so forth for the purpose of keeping the price of oil down. If the Middle East didn't have any natural resources the US cared about, they'd probably be in a lot better shape than they are. One thing is certain about those guys, they will revolt if they think there's a good enough reason to do it.
The current state of madmen running middle eastern countries is the result of a century or so of western imperialism (not just US, either).
First strike capability and first strike policy are different things.
First strike capability is a wonderful deterrent and an excellent dish at the diplomatic table.
First strike policy, well, Germany? 'nuff said.
Um, Russia pulled out of WWI because of their revolution. They found themselves in a civil war with multiple sides which ended with Lenin taking power. (There was an interim non-czarist government, but the Bolsheviks kept up the fight and pushed them out)
*That* was why the war on the eastern front was over. The Germans had bigger fish to fry, otherwise they would have flowed through Russia like the Mississippi river flows through, I don't know, some flat mostly downhill piece of land.
He works for the CNN IT department, so it's understandable.
:P
It was probably just a weather balloon, or exploding swamp gas, or something like that.
"Our words are backed by NUCLEAR POWER"
heh
Which administration was it again under which Al-Qaeda and the Taliban grew to power, and intelligence agents were barred from taking information from "bad guys?"
How far back do you really want to go? Bin laden is CIA-trained. In fact, if you go back far enough, you have to quit pointing fingers at specific people and groups of people, and wind up being forced to conclude that a combination of Europe, the US, and the Soviet-bloc created the middle east as it stands today.
dude, apparently you didn't get the memo. it isn't mass murder, it's a "pre-emptive strike on an emerging threat."
The US is not, and never has been a first strike nation. Oh wait, that's not true anymore.